Instagram to Update Policies—Again

After proposed changes to its terms of service and privacy policies triggered a customer backlash—including a threatened class-action lawsuit accusing it of making a "grab for customer property rights"—photo-sharing site Instagram has come back with another approach. Writing on its company blog, Facebook-owned Instagram said, "Going forward rather than obtain permission from you to approve advertising products we have not yet developed, we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work." The new polices take effect on January 19.

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In case you forgot, Instagram is making some changes to its terms of service and privacy policies later this month—again.

The image sharing site sent a reminder about its scheduled switch in an email earlier this week. The new terms of service will go into effect on January 19 and will not include the same controversial language that made so many Instagramers threaten to take their pictures elsewhere.

And they were serious about their threats. Some almost brought a class-action lawsuit that accused Instagram of nabbing customer property rights.

To keep from upsetting their users again, Instagram is taking a more careful approach this time around. According to the Instagram blog, "Going forward rather than obtain permission from you to approve advertising products we have not yet developed, we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work."

So, what should we brace ourselves for this time around? AllThingsD explains Instagram expects the upcoming changes to help users share data easier through Facebook, which bought the site last year, as well as prevent the frequent spam that reportedly floods through comments.

But the site has gotten mixed signals form users since its last update. AppStats, an analytical tool for Facebook applications and games, shows that site's daily active users has dropped from around 15 million to less than five million in the past month. But at the same time the monthly active users has grown by almost 10 million.

As far as what to expect those numbers to look like when the new terms of service agreement comes around, users will just have to wait and see if they agree to them. Otherwise they’ll be telling Instagram to take a picture of its own site because it will last longer.